Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay Review

Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay is an on-property “Official Hotel” near Tokyo Disneyland. This review features room photos from Hotel Okura, thoughts on the hotel, and our overall recommendation on whether you should stay here. Interestingly, we’ve found Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay to be the cheapest monorail loop hotel about half the time when searching for rooms in the last couple of years.

This is despite Hotel Okura’s reputation as one of the premier luxury hotel chains in Japan. I recall reading about Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay after our first trip. It was basically presented as an option for affluent Japanese guests, but dismissed out-of-hand as a place most Americans wouldn’t consider.

Based on poking around the Hotel Okura Corporate website, I found that while the company definitely prides itself on Japanese hospitality, it also views itself as a global brand with Western influences. Most interesting, Hotel Okura suggests each of its hotels are unique, but all have something in common: a dedication to omotenashi, Japan’s culture of exceptional service and attention to every detail.

We didn’t take full advantage of the hotel’s renowned service, but it was obvious even in our limited interactions. Upon check-in, we were greeted in English, and walked up to our room. There, we were given a comprehensive tour with every detail explained to us. Every time we were in the lobby, it was similar red carpet treatment.

I was actually a bit surprised Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay had staff to assist English-speaking guests. Tokyo Disney Resort is not a big destination for foreign travelers, and most who visit favor the familiarity of the Sheraton Grande or Hilton Tokyo Bay. Having become more comfortable with travel in Japan, we’ve branched out trying to find the best overall deal.

As we noted in our Sunroute Plaza Tokyo Bay Review, travelers who are not high maintenance should look to any of the official hotels at Tokyo Disney Resort, not just the Hilton and Sheraton. However, there is one big downside to every single hotel at Tokyo Disney Resort that isn’t the Hilton or Sheraton: datedness.

Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay feels like it could’ve been built in 1983. I don’t think it actually opened then–the corporate site indicates it was renamed in 2002, but not when it originally opened–but by looking at it, you wouldn’t know any better. (Tokyo Bay Maihama Hotel’s site states that it opened in May 1990, which would be my guess for around the time all of these official hotels started opening.)

Interestingly, though, Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay’s guest rooms are not worn or how you’d expect something of their age to look. This is an odd concept for us, but it’s pretty common in Japan. If you’ve read our other Reviews of Hotels Near Tokyo Disneyland, you’ll see that’s a recurrent trend. Many hotel rooms look like they have not received a top to bottom stylistic overhaul in decades, but are still in perfect condition.

I don’t think this is a result of Japanese style lagging behind Western style by ~20 years. Rather, it seems a consequence of meticulous maintenance standards as well as the respect Japanese guests show property that is not theirs. Even though it’s a circa 1990 luxury hotel, it still feels like a luxury hotel.

Although the room doesn’t look like the epitome of luxury now, if your eye can get past the lovely yellow bile color of virtually everything in the room, you can spot some details that are indicative of quality. The trim, ceilings, and wood headboards are all examples.

Easily the best indication is the marble in the bathroom. Probably because marble bathrooms are more of a timeless “style,” but we felt the bathroom didn’t show its age much at all. Instead, it looked really upscale, and was incredibly spacious.

This bathroom was something you’d expect from a upper echelon luxury hotel, not a ~$150/night (approximately what we paid) hotel. The bathroom also came stocked with just about every conceivable amenity. Suffice to say, it was an “opulent bathroom experience” and those are not words I’d normally use to describe a bathroom. The photos don’t do it justice due to harsh lighting; trust me, it was nice.

The beds were about as sharp of a contrast as possible to that. The bedding looked like an industrial canvas drop cloth (maybe a fancy one?) and the bed was unbelievably hard and uncomfortable.

Apparently we are in the minority in preferring a super soft bed. Per a recent Ipsos survey commissioned by Four Seasons of U.S. and foreign travelers, 92% of respondents expressed distinct preferences on the firmness of a bed. That revealed 50% of travelers like medium, followed by 28% preferring firm, and 14% wanting a soft bed. So, 28% of you might think you’ll love the beds at Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay.

I’m not convinced this is what people who prefer firm beds have in mind. While I may not prefer it, I can appreciate a high-quality firm bed. After a particularly uncomfortable night of sleep that made me question whether I was sleeping on a slab of plywood with a surplus of springs underneath, I pulled back the sheets to check out the mattress.

Based on the appearance, I’d estimate that this predates the hotel itself by a couple of decades. While this mattress might claim it’s a “fine quality bed,” it was not. (You may be skeptical that a label would lie, so you’re going to have to trust me again. 😉 )

I’m lingering on the mattresses because this is, or should be, a potential deal-breaker for some of you. Realistically, most people planning Tokyo Disney Resort vacations who are reading this don’t care about hotel amenities or any of that. You’re rope-dropping the parks and staying until close, and just want somewhere comfortable to crash while the parks are not open.

Well, this is certainly somewhere to crash, but the “comfortable” part of that is a matter of perspective. I can sleep pretty much anywhere and on anything, and I found this mattress to be unpleasant.

For those of you commando tourists visiting Tokyo Disneyland, one big selling point is that Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay is a 5-minute walk from the monorail station and a 15-minute walk directly to Tokyo Disneyland. Both it and Tokyo DisneySea, or the ocean can be seen from the guest rooms. All of this makes Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay a compelling option if you’re able to score a good deal.

Hotel Okura also has 4 restaurants, all of which appeared very upscale as I wandered the hotel. We didn’t dine at any of them, but each scores 4/5 or above on TripAdvisor. I don’t normally put a ton of stock into TripAdvisor reviews, but that’s literally the only info I can find on these restaurants. I’m guessing most people reading this are going to be eating their meals in Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea. If you do happen to be looking for a fine dining experience, you also have it in the hotel.

Other amenities include meeting space, wedding reception options, indoor pool, and health club. We did not avail ourselves of any of these things, but you can be sure the next time we visit, DisneyTouristBlog.com’s corporate officers (me, Sarah, and Yossarian the Cat) will be renting out the largest meeting space for one epic Powerpoint presentation.

Overall, Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay is a nice hotel near Tokyo Disneyland that offers exceptional Japanese service, spacious guest rooms, some of the best bathrooms ever, and a host of amenities. I suspect the overly-firm, low-quality, and aged mattresses are going to be the biggest downside for most potential guests reading this review. The biggest upside (potentially) is going to be pricing, as Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay is now one of the least expensive hotels near Tokyo Disneyland for many travel dates. I wouldn’t pay a premium to stay at Hotel Okura (to the contrary, I’d pay a bit more for the Hilton), but if it’s the cheapest option, I’d consider booking it again. Whether those mattresses are enough to dissuade you from booking here if it’s the best deal is a matter of personal preference. Have you stayed here? What did you think?

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I thought I’d mention this is the third time I’ve read this review (for which I am possibly very grateful!) and not booked this hotel based on the bed commentary, this coming from someone who has never had an uncomfortable night’s sleep despite plenty of sofa beds and a significant number of nights spent lying on airplane ‘beds’, which gives you an idea of how successfully you have scared me off this place!

Each time, I say to myself that it’s not ‘cheaper enough’ to be worth the potential discomfort. I am not sure what the acceptable price difference would be, but I have just paid a 20% premium for the Sheraton. It does amaze me how incredibly closely the “monorail resorts” match each others’ prices though – it’s pretty rare that there’s more than a few dollars in it on any given night.

If it makes you feel better/worse, we’ve stayed at Hotel Okura twice since I wrote this review. Each time, it’s because the difference between Okura and other options is more than $30/night for our dates. I’d definitely pay a premium for the Sheraton or Hilton (and we’ve also stayed at both of those since this review was written).

After our last stay at Okura, someone on social media said they were able to request a mattress pad to make the bed more comfortable. We’ve never heard of that option, but we definitely will give it a try next time!

We don’t find the mattresses in Japan too hard, but many hotels will provide an extra mattress pad on request. One other tip, we were stsying in a group of 7. It was cheaper for us to get the 7 seater taxis to take us to the theme parks and back each day rather than pay 7 monorail fares, and time saving. We did monorail a couple of times for the duffy overlay though

Bed firmness is such an odd thing for me. For laying-in and falling asleep purposes, I love a really plush soft bed. However, if I don’t sleep on a firm mattress I wake up with a completely destroyed back and neck and even tension headaches sometimes.

Thanks for the review, it was a good read! I noticed the same thing you did when I was in Japan earlier this year: a lot of hotels are incredibly outdated in terms of decor but are still in relatively great condition due to good maintenance (and less destructive humans).